Who is Responsible for Marketing in Professional Services Companies?
// March 23rd, 2012 // No Comments » // Uncategorized
There is a sense in which the stereotypical response of most professional service firms to the marketing issue is. one of abdication of responsibility. The challenge of marketing to many professional service firms represents a large ‘black box’ filled with myths and half-truths, ambiguity in terms of the role of professionals and marketing, a dearth of information from both within and outside the profession, budget implications for the partnership and above all a surrounding background of uncertainty. Unable to face the uncertainty around the marketing ‘black box’ the responsibility is shifted from senior management of firm to individual partner, from marketing partner first to outside consultant and then to internal marketer who will further delegate many marketing tasks to subordinates and outside consultants.
In my experience once responsibility has been ‘boxed’ and shifted elsewhere (further down the organization in most cases) then it is incredibly difficult to move responsibility back up the organization as it is now ‘somebody else’s (usually a named individual’s) problem’. Many of the problems faced by professional marketers when they join professional service firms relate to their attempts to make people further up the organization recognize their role in marketing and take responsibility for making it happen.
The reality of the function of marketing in the large majority of professional service firms seems to revolve around marketing communications of various kinds: brochures, public relations, press releases, advertisements, etc., and the role of marketing in its current form is to attract new clients. While communications is obviously one of the four elements of the marketing mix it is only one element and in the professional service context it is not the most important element of the mix.
The role of marketing in the management and development of professional service firms is severely limited in most cases. While in most professions it can be argued that marketing as a legitimate issue is still in its infancy, the future of marketing within the professions will by no means sort itself out simply over time. There is a distinct danger, which I have witnessed on a number of occasions, that marketing in its current form in many firms will be deemed to have ‘failed’. Marketing individuals and departments whose function is built around external marketing communications will require relatively large budgets. As with all marketing expenditure in service businesses the marketers within the firm will be unable to point to changes in bottom line firm performance and directly attribute them to marketing communications. Marketing is then in the organizational position of being seen by many partnerships as a function that spends a good deal of their hard-earned fee income while being unable to tangibly demonstrate a return for the firm on their investment. Therefore the firm may decide that it has ‘tried marketing’ and found it not to be the panacea promised by the public relations consultants and consequently decide either to abandon marketing or simply curtail its budget.
The reality is, of course, that such firms have not ‘tried marketing’ at all. They have tried ‘marketing communications’ and discovered that they can be expensive and that it is very difficult to measure the results tangibly. Sarah writes for business and sports sites online.
